General Assembly

CAIRO, 7 February — Israeli policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory imposed a “huge price tag” on the Palestinian economy by preventing Palestinians from accessing much of their land and exploiting most of their natural resources, while isolating them from global markets and fragmenting their territory into small, poorly connected “cantons”, the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian people heard at the start of its second day.

CAIRO, 6 February — The Israeli policies towards the Occupied Palestinian Territory not only limited the growth of the Palestinian economy, amid the cost of crippling closures and obstructed passage, but transferred Palestinian resources to the Israeli economy, the United Nations Seminar heard today.

CAIRO, 6 February — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a message today to the opening of the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People, said that occupation measures that stifled Palestinian life must be rolled back, as the status quo was unacceptable and only guaranteed continued conflict and suffering.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will convene the United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People, in Cairo, Egypt, at the Sofitel Cairo El Gezirah, on 6 and 7 February. The theme of the Seminar is “The economic cost of continued Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territory: local, regional and international efforts towards mitigating it”.

The new Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission pledged today that he would pursue “the path of inclusion” throughout 2012 to enhance the six-year-old body’s ability to mobilize resources and align key actors in assisting the populations of countries emerging from conflict.

Recognizing that the role of diamonds in fuelling armed conflict remained a matter of serious international concern, with a devastating effect on affected countries, the General Assembly this afternoon reaffirmed its strong and continuing support for the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, which aimed to eliminate conflict diamonds from the legitimate trade.

The United Nations Disarmament Commission, in an organizational meeting today, elected Enrique Roman-Morey of Peru as Chairman of its upcoming three-week substantive session — slated to run from 2 to 20 April — as consensus on its provisional agenda remained elusive.

The Meeting of States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights today elected Walter Kälin (Switzerland) and Marat Sarsembayev (Kazakhstan) to the Human Rights Committee, replacing members who had resigned before completing their four-year terms of office.

With the political situation throughout North Africa and the Middle East in flux after months of anti-Government protests, the dismal reality of climate change playing out across South-east Asia and the Horn of Africa, and the world’s major economic engines still mired in recession, the General Assembly opened its sixty-sixth session with a busy agenda reflecting many of the year’s most vital international issues.

After protracted, all-night negotiations, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) wrapped up the main part of its sixty-sixth session Saturday morning by recommending a $5.152 billion budget for the Organization for 2012-2013.